TEARS OF A TEST CARD CLOWN

In an exclusive revealing interview by Nice Nostalgia reporters the test card clown reveals exclusively the story of his rise and fall in the limelight.

We first asked him about the start of his career.

"I remember it well" he says "I had a number of small but successful acting parts throughout the 1960s including guest toy on Play School twice. Apparently I had got myself noticed by some of the big boys at the BBC who were planning a new test card for the up and coming colour television service.

I was called in for an audition and they told me I had just the right looks for the green balance but more importantly they wanted know if I could act. Being a test card I was auditioning for, I couldn’t impress them verbally so I had to put everything into pose and facial expressions. They chose me on looks alone and decided to wait for the photo-shoot to see how good an actor I was."

Everything didn’t go entirely to plan on the day that the photo was taken he reveals.

"The day of the shoot came and I was shown the set. I tried as many ways as I could think of looking jolly whilst sitting in front of a blackboard but I just couldn’t get the look the wanted. This went on for several hours and the little girl was starting to get a bit tired.

During one of the filming breaks to keep her amused I suggested a game of noughts and crosses. After winning the first ten or so games I decided to give the kid a chance and let her win. One of the photographers noticed how relaxed we were and shouted at us to attract our attentions. We turned round, there was a flash and the famous photo was taken."

Our reporter asked how he felt about being the first toy seen in Colour on nation-wide British television.

"It was great" he reveals.

"For the first few months the phone was always ringing, especially when the cricket was rained off or just after closing time. Our card was exported all over the world. I was a global success. I was constantly being invited to open supermarkets and I was even asked to do the Oxford Street Christmas lights in 1969. Unfortunately due to a technical fault the switch on had to be cancelled and in the meantime they played some light instrumental music."

However it wasn’t all laughs the famous clown reveals. He admits as time went on his success waned.

"Nobody expects to be famous forever. I must admit I took it hard especially as pages from Ceefax seemed to be grabbing the attention of the public eye. We started getting less and less popular slots by the late Seventies the best we could expect was 5 minutes on a Saturday morning before the start of the Multicoloured Swap Shop.

Of course the repeat fees were drying up, in fact some of the insiders at the BBC claimed they didn’t see a need for a clown in the test card at all claiming the photograph on it was only need for flesh tones."

The story leaked and a massive letter-writing campaign by the clown’s fandom ensured that he stayed on the test card.

"The fans were great they breathed new life into the card. Things were on the up, there was even talk of us getting back together to do another card."

What the clown hadn’t counted on was the anger of television executives who were furious at the leaking of the story.

"Oh yeah we made a lot of enemies especially with the boys from Ceefax who now had a lot of swing with the bosses. They made sure the buried us. I can’t be certain but I have strong suspicions Breakfast and Daytime television was engineered for this very purpose. Our mainstay was BBC2. We were on that more often than the television programmes. Then they shifted the educational stuff on to it. We could cope with a little competition from the Open University but Schools and Colleges as well, forget it!"

As it transpired this was only the beginning of the fictional vendetta but the BBC was starting to show the strain.

"Well with all the extra programming the BBC were putting on in our place they were simply running out of programmes to put on. There are only a finite number of twenty year old documentaries and Australian soap operas in existence."

The whole system collapsed in a wave of media publicity during the summer of 1988. The summer has traditionally been a period of poor television because everyone is supposed to be out enjoying the sunshine. Unfortunately for TV companies 1988 was one of the worst British summers on record. Everything at the time on British television was officially classified as crap by the viewing public.

"In a strange way I was delighted their own plans worked against them. It was of little comfort for me because my life was already in tatters after being found by the press in a hotel room with a Venezuelan go-go dancer and a large quantity of white powder. " The famous clown comments.

In his defence the clown claims "The woman was in fact my physiotherapist and her previous career as a go-go dancer in South America was unbeknown to me at the time. The white powder was talcum powder used for medicinal purposes only."

Unfortunately for him the damage was done and his life as a celebrity was over.

The test card clown now lives council flat and is currently receiving state benefits, although he remains optimistic about the future.

"There are a few plans in the pipeline and I’ve even been in discussions with Satellite Television about hosting a top show with average viewing figures of between 5 and 7 people, which is pretty good for Satellite TV"

He also exclusively revealed plans a new test card autobiography that he hopes will relaunch his failed career.

"We are already planning a movie and hopefully we’ll start auditioning soon for someone to play the part of little girl who is rubbish at noughts and crosses"

When asked who would play him in the new movie he smiled coyly and exclusively revealed

"Well nothing is certain yet but Jack Nicholson has expressed an interest after reading the screenplay and he is one of a number of very few actors who I believed can do my jolly grin justice on screen."

The new movie will be called "Xs and Os" and is planned for release sometime next year.